Countdown to Salvation

365 days, 5 hours, 14 minutes and 36 seconds to Salvation! This is my Salvation counter that resides on my desktop, reminding me everyday what I need to do to make it happen. I put it up today.

Today is 15th December 2007. I've been in this god forsaken city for 1 year 6 months and 5 days. I've started to move today, from the apartment I've been in since I came to this city all that time ago. Packing up was like opening a Pendora's box of buried memories. Memories of lives changed, of good things taken away, of friends lost, of hopes dead, of ambition failed, of people changed.

For the next 365 days, each day will be a step to salvation, each with a place, each with a small part to play in the bigger scheme of things, each to contribute to the effort towards a single minded purpose, all the way to the final goal, to salvation. What is salvation? Salvation is freedom from this place, from the memories of all that it took away, it is a move towards the better, the happier, till the two and a half years that I would have been here would fade away to a distant bad memory, a nightmare, that you forget once you wake up from it. 553 days gone, another 365 days, 4 hours, 44 minutes and 06 seconds to go.

15th December 2007 - Step 1: I've started to move from the apartment.

I will be out of this city by 15th December 2008. This is my promise to myself.

of Egypt IV --- The Egyptian Museum and Closing Thoughts

On my way back from the Pyramids, I had gone on Thursday, the last workday of the week, I decided to go for the overkill and visit the Egyptian Museum too. Overcrowded is an understatement, there were literally queues of people both inside and out, shuffling behind each other looking at the displays. Kinda put me off but anyway, it is the world's single biggest collection of Egyptian artifacts afterall. Built 1897-1901, the museum was opened to the public in 1903. It is said to have over 27,000 ancient Egyptian artifacts, and if you spend a minute looking at each of them, you will need 10 months to see the entire thing! If you're visiting the museum for a few hours like me, there are a few things you should make the bee line for:

1. The royal mummy chamber. There are actually two seperate chambers, and there is a additional ticket for visiting these, on top of your museum entry ticket, 100 Egyptian pounds which equals to a little more than a 1000 Pakistani Rupees. The two chambers together have fifty four mummies, the highlight being that of the Ramses III

2. The treasures of King Tut. Tutenkhamen the boy-king of Egypt, died at the age of 19. He was married to queen nefertiti. His tomb in the Valley of the Kings remained safe from marauders throughout the centuries and was discovered untouched in 1920. All the treasuers in the tomb now lie in the Egyptian Museum. You get completely awe struck by their magnificence and the lengths to which the ancient Egyptians went to before burying their king. Important are the mask of Tutenkhamen. It is an 11 kg solid gold mask which was said to have covered the head of King Tut's mummy. Also for display, one of the two guilded coffins, The other still lies in the actual tomb in the Valley of the Kings and contained King Tut's body until only a month or so ago when the mummy was moved to a climate control chamber to prevent further damage through exposure to heat and humidity. There are a gazillion things more, jewelery, statues, thrones, chairs, beds, boats, crockery, clothes and what not. Definitely worth the visit. By the way the jewelery can put today's internationally famous top designers to shame.

Sadly no cameras are allowed inside, so I consoled myself by taking pictures of the exterior.

Host to all touristing humanity in Cairo, the place was crowded

I don't know what the Latin says but if you look closely the year of start of construction, 1897, is on the left, and the year of finish, 1901, is on the right. On the top are the Egyptian flag and the flag of chief archaeological body of Egypt

Yup this is what it looks like, a thriving Lily Pond in the middle of sweltering Cairo afternoon heat. looks amazing

A close up of the lily pond

After spending some three hours at the museum, I went to the office, the P&G office in Cairo is in the Nile City towers at Corniche El Nil, spent another four hours winding work up, then got into a cab and headed for the airport. Cairo traffic is infamous and my contact in Egypt bundled me off to the airport three and a half hours before the flight. As is bound to happen in such situations, the roads were relatively uncrowded and I made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Chatted the two hours at the airport away with a South Indian business intelligence professional based in Dubai, who was heading back to Dubai from meetings in Cairo and as usual was surprised to see a Pakistani girl travelling alone and that too on business. Heck, whats the big deal?!. Broke my fast at the airport as well. Got into the plane, had gotten my upgrade to Business Class (yay!) and slept my way back to Karachi, which was of course punctuated by an 8 hour transit at the Dubai airport.

Egypt is a place where you shouldn't go for a few days or a week, but for a month maybe more. Cairo is just barely scratching the surface, there are so so many things to be seen in Egypt: Memphis, Valley of the Kings, Abu Simbal, Aswan dam, Al Fayoum Oasis, Bab Zuweila, Beit ul Suhaymi, Souq al Gamaal, Citadel, Dahshur and I'm sure many many more.

of Egypt III --- Pyramids by Day, Light & Sound Show by Night (continued)

Going to the light and sound show doesn't at all mean you've seen the Pyramids, so naturally I headed there the next day in the morning. The pyramids were constructed by kings of the fourth dynasty, Cheops (the first and the largest pyramid, it is one of the seven wonders of ancient world), Chephren (second pyramid, the only one with some of its decorative limestone remaining at the tip) and Mykerinos, the third and the smallest pyramid. The pyramids are situated at Giza, outside the Giza city. The location actually has 11 pyramids, the remaining eight are much much smaller, grouped around their respective bigger pyramid and belong to the kings' mother or wife or daughter. The pyramids are flanked by temples (The Valley Temple and the Sphinx Temple), where the embalming process of the dead king was done by the priests and the entire area is guarded by the sphinx located in the centre right in front of Chephren's pyramid.

Cheops' Pyramid:Covering an area of 13 acres, the sides are oriented to the four cardinal points of the compass and the length of each side at the base is 755 feet (230.4 m). They rise at an angle of 51 52'14.3" to a height , originally, of 485 feet (147 m) but nowadays 450 feet (138 m). It was constructed using around 2,300,000 limestone blocks, weighing, on average, 2.5 tons each. Although some weigh as much as 16 tons. Until recently, relatively speaking, it was cased in smooth limestone but this was plundered to build Cairo.

Chephren's Pyramid:Built smaller than Cheops' Pyramid as a mark of respect, the height is 447.5 feet, length of each side at the base is 707.5 feet and the slope of the sides is 52 20'. Some limestone still remains at the top.

Mykerinos' Pyramid: The smallest of the three pyramids, it has a height of 204 feet, length of each side at the base is 356.5 feet and the Slope of each side is 51°

I don't think I've seen a white camel before

Left to Right: Cheops, Chephren, Mykerinos, and a few satellite pyramids. Cheops seems smaller as it is farther away

The North African Desert

The Sphinx

The Valley Temple, all the statues and artifacts have been removed to the Cairo Museum

The Valley Temple, another view

Final installment next ....

of Egypt, Part II --- Pyramids by Day, Light & Sound Show by Night

I will start with the light and sound show first as that happened first in chronological order. It takes place at the Giza pyramids. The show happens seven days a week, the first show of the day starts at 7:30 in the evening, and happens in different languages. Make sure you pick the English show or you will find out you are stuck listening to ancient Egyptian history that sounds like gibberish (unless of course you are fluent in French, Spanish, German and so forth). So like I mentioned the show is essentially about ancient pharaoh-nic history, presented via spectacular lasers and lights which are projected on the pyramids and the sphinx and accompanied by powerful narration. Take a good camera with you. My point and shoot cybershot completely failed to capture the magnificence of it. You will hear about all the four eras of pharaohnic kings, with key figures and their achievements highlighted. This is the place to brush up on your nephertiti and tutenkhamen facts. The show is preceded by the march of a band dressed in traditional Egyptian costumes. As always pictures:

Khufu's (also Cheops) pyramid on the right, it is the largest and the first pyramid, part of the seven wonders of the ancient world. On the left is Khafre's (also Chephren) pyramid, his successor's successor)

Pyramid of Khafre (also Chephren), the second pyramid, with his face projected on the sphinx in the front

From right to left, Chephren's Pyramid, Menkaura's Pyramid (also Mykerinos), Chephren's successor, it is the 3rd and the smallest pyramid. Also at the very left one of the smaller pyramids of Menkaura's wife/mother/daughter

The Sphinx, constructed by Chephren, with head of a man, and body of a lion, meant to keep marauder's away from the sacred burial ground

Later, the pyramids by day.

of Egypt, Part I --- First Impressions and Some Sight Seeing

I can't believe how quickly time passes away, yet when you think of the future, of the things to come, of the time till you get something you want, or the things you are waiting for, it feels like it will never pass, like my time to get out of Karachi e.g. ... anyway this post is about Egypt, which I was planning to write RIGHT after I got back, and believe it or not its been two months! Hence that little philosophizing about the nature of time.

To Cairo

One of the best things about my job is the traveling, not only because I want to, literally, see the entire planet, but also because its for free, and yes it gives me much much needed breaks from Karachi. To be away from here for 7-10 days is a blessing, even if part of it is spent in 8 hour transits at the Dubai airport. Helps me survive the next month or two. Anyway when the opportunity came not only to get out of Karachi, but to Egypt of all the places, obviously I couldn't be happier. Getting the visa was a hassle, apparently the fax machines in the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad don't work, so its impossible to get the 'invitation letter' by the company you're visiting in Egypt (which is by the way the requirement for a business visa) faxed to them in the first go. So after making numerous phone calls to both Cairo and Islamabad, my passport (with the visa) arrived at the Karachi airport the night before my flight to Cairo. Got picked up from there by a friend and delivered to my house. This is what it looks like (To think all this effort for a purple stamp, this brings me to a discussion about visas but thats for later)

Note the 'Brocter Wa Jaambal' written at the bottom left, thats Procter & Gamble for you in Arabic!

In Cairo

Cairo is a huge city by any standards. Home to about 70% people in Egypt. I landed at night, breaking my fast while in the plane (oh did I mention this was in Ramadan?). Much too tired to take blurry dark pictures from the moving car, I just chatted on my way to the hotel with this Finn who had come on the same flight from Dubai as me, and incidentally was staying at the same hotel, and had like me also called for the hotel meet & greet service. He was surprised to know that I was from Pakistan (something that has happened before to as people don't associate single women traveling alone on business with Pakistan), and then went into a reverie of how he has lived in Islamabad for 3 years and loves the city.

Anyway I was surprised to see how much more cleaner (and i hear safer) Cairo is as compared to Karachi, and you don't see a SINGLE beggar on the road, (maybe they hide them from people like us) and all the Egyptians I met were friendly (I had people telling me how bad Egyptians are) but that was maybe because I got mistaken for an Arab quite a number of times, which was good till people spoke to me in Arabic and I would be like 'wha?' And then they'd go "Oh I thought you were Arab"

Ramadan in Cairo is a festival. People literally stay up all night and just sit on the roadsides eating and chatting and smoking away. Its weird, seeing so many people on the road, very late in the night. The only time the roads are empty I guess is at Iftar (which they translate into 'breakfast' in English and had me confused for quite a bit). Oh and their word for Sheri is 'Suhoor', took a bit of time to figure that out as well.

The Nile

Sight Seeing

Though my work schedule turned out to be much more hectic than I thought, but going to Cairo and not sight seeing is I guess going to the moon and not getting any moon rock? So here goes, results of some hasty sight seeing:

Khan el Khalili & Jamia Al Azhar: Ancient egyptian bazaar in the heart of old Cairo, right next to the now derelict and abandoned, massive structure of Jamia Al-Azhar. The university is arguably one of the world's oldest, built as a mosque in 969 AD when Cairo was founded. The university now has moved to modern premises outside main Cairo where religious studies are augmented by modern education as well. The old Al-Azhar still serves as a mosque and a location for religious gatherings. Khan el Khalili is now the heaven for souvenir sellers, with a healthy spattering of traditional egyptian cafes, designed to attract the wandering tourist. Here are the pictures:

A shot of one facade of the ancient Jamia Al Azhar, wish I had more time to exlore it inside-out

"Khan el Khalili - The Quintessential Curio Street"

lil stuffed furry animals smoking mock shishas

yup thats a huge shisha

pyramids anyone?

beautifully crafted glass perfume bottles. Perfumary is one of the most ancient Egyptian secrets along with papyrus. Perfumes are sold seperately

lamp shop

A jeweled frog. This one is probably a pendant

Remember I was saying something about people sitting outside on the roads?

More later ...

Nostalgia

"Friday, November 19, 2004

The night is over and I'm really really weary

After dinner I came back to my room discussed some implemention issues and approaches of the Mousatron with Hashim till 3:00 am. After that it was a couple of 8051 e-Books and Data Sheets for me. It didnt take me long to get bored though and I ended up watching Legends of the Fall again ..."

What you see up there in an excerpt from a blog entry that my good friend I-T (Iqbal Talaat Bhatti) made in his blog "I-T's Blog Central" three years ago. This is one of the first few entries. I-T started blogging in Novemeber 2004, back then blogger was pretty new, and all of us were home from GIKI for mid-semester break. I-T didn't stop just there but infact i'm sure he was the single influencing factor in getting many people to blog, including me. Though I never was as faithful to it as I-T, as is evident from his long list of archive as opposed to my very short one. I even killed my blog and reincarnated it after a year. Please do pay I-T's blog a visit, the link is in my right pane under 'More Blabbers'. Anyway, since I am celebrating sad-yet-sweet nostalgia, I will continue to explain the background to the entry I-T made above ...

It was our 5th semester, and me, I-T, Hashim and moody (Ali Osman Hameed) formed a group for our Microprocessor Interfacing course project. We were all hoping to become fully qualified Computer Systems Engineers in another year and a half. We, rather ambitiously, decided to make a mouse-in-a-maze robot and after careful and lengthy deliberation, christened it 'mous-A-tron' (i think I-T and I came up with that one). A huge undertaking as it was, I-T and Hashim took the job of working on the code for the microprocessor itself, with I-T doing bulk of the actual coding, I was entrusted with making a circuit to accept the signal from the processor and send it up to the 15volt stepper motors (stepping it up from 5 volts to 15 volts on the way), which would in ideal conditions turn to make the mouseatron run, and I also designed the robot body in this rather cool engineering design software that we learnt in our 2nd Semester. I can't remember the name right now, but incidentally, it was I-T's elder brother, Kashif Bhatti, who was a mechanical engineer and had graduated in the spring of the same year we had joined, taught us the software back in our 2nd semester as he was our Engineering Design teacher.

Anyway, Moody and Hashim took the responsibility of actually constructing the robot body using the services of the workshop in the mechanical engineering faculty of the university. I-T also single handedly constructed the infra red obstacle detection circuit which was supposed to be the 'eyes' mousatron would use to get out of the maze. We spent some four weeks labouring over the project, during which I-T went crazy learning about the 8051 microprocessor while I could claim a half PhD in stepper motor theory. We finally got done with the four seperate parts of the robot but found out that they wouldn't work when put together and there was no time and hope to debug as the semester was nearly over, not to mention the final presentation was in the next few days, so in the end we showed all 4 components working seperately and incidentally got away with one of the highest scores in the class. Apparently we had done more with a non-working project than many people with fully functional ones :)

Fast Forward a year-and-a-half

All four of us graduated in the class of 2006. Our final exams ended mid-May 2006 with our convocation on 7th of June. Among our various accomplishments was an A in our two-semester, final year project, for which I-T, Hashim and I were again in a group. I think after mouseatron the three of us almost always ended up making project groups together.

Fast Forward three years

I-T: After graduation, I-T spent some time at his home in Lahore with his family. He had earlier applied to Microsoft, made it all the way and got hired. And I believe that he thoroughly and truly deserves it. But even before that, he worked at GIKI for sometime as a teaching assistant (TA), which I'm sure he was really good at. He moved to Microsoft which is situated in Redmond, outside Seattle, in April 2007 and been there since. Other than working, he spends his time experimental cooking, photographing, kayaking, canoe-ing, extreme sporting, biking, travelling and has nearly drowned at one occasion and multiple-fractured his arm at another. He's in Pakistan (Lahore) these days, his first trip home since Microsoft and is due to leave for America in a few weeks time. He blogs very regularly at his blog central. Link in the right pane. He is also found to cheer sad or sick friends up (meaning me) by sending them Chocolates and KFC through gift services.

Hashim: After graduating with the rest of us, Hashim, originally from Rawalpindi, worked in a local software house for a while, then went to GIKI as a TA around the same time as I-T, and left a few months after him. He is currently pursuing his masters degree at Chalmers in Goteborg, Sweden.

Moody: Moody also from Lahore party-ed after graduation and then moved to London, being a British national, as he was born there. There he switched jobs (and apartments) with quite regularity, yet never letting the party die out as many of our batchmates from GIKI went to UK for studies and proved to be his constant companions. He is currently working in the I-T department at Harrod's and can be heard from (online ofcourse) complaining about his 11 hour shifts.

I: Having gotten a job offer from P&G while I was in my 8th semester (I had interned for them in the summers after my 6th), I moved to Karachi just 2 days after graduating from GIKI. I started with the company on 12th June 2006. Coming from Islamabad, which is as diametrically opposite to Karachi as any two cities can get, I have had a rough time living alone here, with very few friends, a few personal set backs, and limited mobility due to the rather unsafe nature of the city. I have been here for nearly 1.5 years now, and I spend my time away from work in my room, staring at my laptop screen, enjoying the delights of unlimited internet. I was reading through I-T's blog archives when i stumbled upon the post above. My mother is still in Islamabad, where she has lived for 27 years and where I was born and raised. My sister now lives in Dubai with her husband, having gotten married some 2 months after I came to Karachi.

Here's the link to I-T's blog entry that triggered the cascade: The night is over and I'm really really weary


Here's a google map with GIKI, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi tagged along with my impressions of them. For Redmond, London and Gotenborg refer to your nearest google map.



View Larger Map


P.S: I'll try to dig up some old mouseatron stuff from my old PC which is lying like a relic in my room now and post them here. Next time I'll try to post about Egypt. A few people were interested in that.

Stranger Perspectives

Extreme close up of a snowglobe or rather a 'glitterglobe' of Istanbul's Sultanahmet Camii which is more popularly known as 'The Blue Mosque'. Constructed in 17th century, the mosque is famous for its blue Izmir tiles interior, hence the name. A visit ijavascript:void(0)s nothing short of awe inspiring. The 'glitterglobe' bought from a small shop in Istanbul's 'Grand Bazar' on 18th March 2007.

Here's the real deal:

About Thor and Laptops

What does Thor, the Norse god of lightning, have in common with laptops? Or Zeus, or Jupiter or Leir for that matter, who are his Greek, Roman and Celtic counterparts respectively. To answer the question, nothing, at least not apparently, until I delve into the story of my laptop and how it can be related to any of the above mythological deities.

As a manager at P&G, I, on joining the company, was given a brand new standard issue HP laptop. The laptop with bare minimum specs is good enough for reading and sending emails and running Microsoft Office, which is what you mostly do as a manager but given my rather geeky disposition, and my technical job descroption, was no way capable of simultaneously handling at least 20 windows for at least 20 hours a day on an everyday basis (Yes, yes, I admit, I sleep with my laptop, and that too switched on). Needless to say the poor thing started to give up in this already losing battle some 14 months into its operational life. And that's when i decided to get it sup-ed up. Major changes: hard disk from 40GB to 80 GB and RAM from 512 MB to 1.5GB. It feels awesome ^_^

However I was not satisfied with just 'back end' changes, and bothered by the fact that my laptop looked EXACTLY like at least 50 other laptops in the office (people who know me will understand my utter need to personalise EVERYTHING that i own), I wondered if I could do something about its rather drab exterior. Since the laptop is legally still a property of P&G, and under warranty from HP, which goes void if I mess with the paint job itself, I settled for a 'sticker job', i.e. drawn and painted on paper, cut out, then glued to the laptop lid, which can easily be peeled off later when the time comes to part my ways with it. This obviously brought me to the question of what exactly to put on it. Buoy-ed up that I was with the very perceptible increase in my laptop's performance, I settled for two lightening bolts, slanting inwards at the tip, in silver to go with the matte gray original color of the machine. Thus further excited, I discussed the idea with a few of my good friends, namely Saady, I-T and Basimio (their blogs are listed under More Blabbers). Got an excited thumbs up from all of them. I-T went on to Christian the 're-born' laptop "Thor's Laptop" or "Zeus' Laptop". And there you have it.

Bringing the idea to execution took another 2-3 weeks since I was traveling as well as very busy with work. Also a minor tragedy dampened the euphoria a little. I finally managed to put the lightning bolts in place on a Sunday, and the next day I had to turn my laptop in and move to a temporary laptop because I was for a few days having serious heating problems which had started to affect the hard disk. However not to be mowed down, I managed on getting the hard disk, RAM and keyboard of my old machine inserted into the replacement machine. The DVD drive and battery were already from my old machine as this one didn't have em. That took care of the interior, and left the sticker-work on the lid of the machine i was giving away. I therefore pestered our local support person till he called the vendor and I got the entire screen switched between the two laptops ... hehe. So now I'm a rather happy camper, with a machine that performs at least 20 hours a day, 7 days a week, and had a custom paint job too!

Obviously this post would be incomplete without the pictures, which I've naturally added. No comments on the dirty room!

my laptop proudly sitting at its rightful place on my bed. Usually its turned around
but here it's posing for the picture ;)

Shimmery silver thanks to fabric paint on paper. Glows in bright light.

Sadness Prevails

Happy Ramadan all you observing Muslims out there, today was the 3rd Ramadan - 1428 Hijri, in Pakistan. Another half an hour to Iftari and another day gone, mercifully rather quickly. Its Sunday and as usual I'm confined to my room, sitting in my bed, stuck to my laptop, playing with everything that can be played with via the internet.

I miss my mom's Iftari, or even the one I used to make myself last year. Now thanks to a busted fridge, a flatmate you hate (and vice versa), no car, and no friends who would like to break their fast with you, my definition of Iftari has come down to dates, water, a pack of lays and uhmm a peach (till stocks last). Then i'll pray, sleep and wake up and order a 6" Subway I guess *sigh* The stuff above accumulated over a few chance visits to the proximity of grocery stores. Karachi is not a place where you can walk to your nearest shop alone, on foot. Its too damn unfriendly for that. I know I wouldn't have hung on if not for a job I really really really like and uhmm yea thats about it.

As for the flatmate we used to be on good enough terms till about 2 months ago, thats when all hell broke lose, had an argument with my flatmate, and sadly she stooped to the level of verbal violence that I can never even imagine stooping to in about a six hundred billion years. The reason?! Me not helping her with getting the fridge fixed. Hell, I didn't want to tell her I was so depressed I couldn't even find the energy to feed myself 5 days outta 7 in a week let alone be bothered about whether the fridge is working or not. Again, my work life is great, its just my personal one thats screwed up! Last year I made both of us sehri and iftari, since my flatmate's culinary skills are very limited, and for some reason NEVER rubbed it in, but my flatmate makes a point of hurling at me, everything that she has done and I haven't ... and oh of course since she moved to Karachi first and had already bought the fridge and the TV and the microwave and such, its obviously 'hers' hence now off-limits to me.

The silver lining? Well I'm praying more regularly, more regularly than I have in more than a year, I hope I stick to it. I'm working and uhmm updating my blog, if that counts as a silver lining.

Adios all, 10 mins to go, I'll go wash my dates and slice my peach.

For those who find some terms up there unfamiliar:

Sehri: the meal taken before the fast. It must be taken before dawn.
Iftari: the meal taken when the fast is broken. Taken at sundown.

Celebrating 2+ years of the Blabbering Wombat!

After knocking about for more than two years, an entire year out of which the allegedly 'blabbering' wombat was utterly silent, I decided to give my blog a new look, or a partial new look anyway. Since i can't seem to find the time or the patience to write the entire page from scratch, I resorted to switching to the new 'widget' based template that has been around for at least a few months. But since I was always partial to the design / layout of my old template, I've pretty much stuck to that, though played quite a bit with the colors and obviously, I'm widget-ed ;)

I must admit the new blogger makes editing your template and layout immensely easier. Instead of looking for the right spot in reams and reams of HTML code to insert that additional line, you now just add 'page elements', drag & drop it to the desired place in your blog and thats about it! Everything is a few clickety-clicks and a lil tap-tapping away! and NOW if you want that additional lil tweak, you can *still* go into the HTML of your layout and add that additional line. hehe. (though an easier way to do it is to add an HTML/javascript widget)

In the coming weeks, expect a few more changes till this latest interest wears off and I sink back to the relative laziness of the marsupial that lends its name to my utterings.

As for posts, I have two in the pipeline, one of them is on Chinchillas, though if I were you, I won't bank on the Chinchillas bit ;)

Here's a rather disappointing wiki entry on widgets: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUI_widget

Easter Eggs for the Deviant Mind!

No i'm not talking about this:



Recently while googling and wiki-ing (which happen to be my favourite pastimes), I stumbled upon the wiki site for easter eggs, the virtual one that is. To define it for the sake of my less aware audience:

"A virtual Easter egg is a hidden message or feature in an object such as a movie, book, CD, DVD, computer program or video game. The term draws a parallel with the custom of the easter egg hunt observed in many western nations. In computer programming, the underlying motivation is often to put an individual, almost artistic touch on an intellectual product which is by its nature standardised and functional"

The site goes on to give examples of many famous easter eggs, such as the flight simulator in MS excel 97 and pinball in MS Word 97. Apparently Microsoft ends up with more than its fair share of smart ass developers. Easter eggs are apparently found in hardware as well such as entire circuits etched on the circuit board that only serve to fulfill the designer's sense of personalization. My favourites are:

• Debian GNU/Linux package tool apt-get has an Easter egg involving an ASCII cow when variants on "apt-get moo" are typed into the shell.

• In The Mathwork's MATLAB the why command provides succinct random answers to almost any question.

 % why
 % because the not very smart system engineer insisted on it

(something I'll definitely try if I manage to move my lazy ass and turn on my desktop which has two different versions of MATLAB installed on it)

• Perhaps the most famous example of a hardware Easter egg is in the HP ScanJet 5P, where the device will play the Ode to Joy or Fur Elise by varying the stepper motor speed if users power the device up with the scan button depressed. (I mean el oh el! some funky techie man, making your stepper motors literally SING! I remember when i spent some three weeks in my 5th semester trying to make two stupid stone age stepper motors turn so i could run a robotic mouse!)

Obviously many of us remember playing with the mIRC "about" icon that smiled and said 'what?' when you right clicked on it and the *pichkoui* sound when you clicked on Khaled Merdem Bey's nose in the about box and oh of course the stuffed alligator picture that appeared in place of Merdem Bey's when you typed 'arnobie' while the about box was open .... BUT armed with the knowledge above, I absolutely had to embark on a search for easter eggs in modern software. Microsoft apparently has removed almost all easter eggs in its software as it is not a very encouraged practice anymore. Anyway after going through quite a number of sites these are my top picks:

Head Banging Llama's in Winamp 5+ (modern skin only):

"Winamp really whips the llama's ass" .... it makes them head bang too! This is how to do it:

Run Winamp 5 or higher in modern skin and then expand the main window till you see the beat visualizer.

Keeping Shift+Alt+Ctrl pressed click over the dot in the dead center of the beat visualizer. See the red dot in the image below:

And there you go you have your llama's ... headbanging with the beat! Brilliant!



Tetris in uTorrent

All you leechers out there, here's something to do while you sit and stare at your torrents download:

Go to help -> about uTorrent. This is what an 'innocent' help box looks like:

*pssst* clicking on the uTorrent logo in the about box plays the snazzy THX sound.

Now press Ctrl+T to transform this useless appendage to one of the most addictive games ever invented. Play on! (press P to pause). Oh and it even remembers your highest score!




Obviously all proprietary material mentioned in this post is copyright of its respective owners. (I think thats the appropriate disclaimer).

Here's the link to the wiki site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_egg_(virtual)

Happy easter egg hunting y'all! Drop me a comment/leave a message on GoogleTalk if you come across something interesting! :)

Some things you play till you go screwey in the head ....

ahhhhhhh ..... came back home after a long day, it was Friday, last day of the work week, skipped dinner (as usual), got into bed, turned off the the lights, started playing around 11:30 pm .... the next day was Saturday i.e. the weekend so kept playing till I suddenly realized that it was 4:30 am .... since i sleep with my laptop (got DSL with the modem lying pn my bed so I'm always connected with my laptop less than a foot away from me even when I'm asleep) I decided to rest a bit before resuming, woke up at 9 am, sat up in bed, rubbed my eyes .... and started playing again ... and kept at it till 1:45 pm when a friend called to tell that she was picking me up in 15 mins. What am I talking about? Desktop tower defence! <<< click there!


You have a square playing area, two entries and exits, a selection of guns, a few gizmos, 20 lives, 80 pieces of gold and creepies that try to run across to the other side and say 'yippeee!' ... make sure you play with your speakers on ... the sounds are just too good. Your objective ... to make a maze using the guns for the creepies to pass through ... you gain points and gold everytime a creepie dies, the gold allows you to buy more guns to complicate your maze and upgrade existings ones to enhance range and damage. As you progress through the standard 50 levels the creepies refuse to be even scratched by a mere non - up graded gun. Must play! and like a friend said "us gikians are everywhere" there is a group scoreboard 'giki-cafe' (this is the main) and also 'giki' where you can post your scores ... will run into a lot of familiar 'nicks' here hehe. It is just one of those simple games that you run across, start playing and keep playing till you play yourself sick! literally! I gave up for 3 days after I played non stop for 5, ended up giving myself headache and nausea. Just started playing again! hehe


Another one is plasmapong <<< again click there... the guy who made it has an obvious obsession with fluid mechanics, essentially its your standard computer ping pong, but in a viscous world of its own! Your can mess with your ball and deflect it in the liquid by sending viscous explosive surges, merely by holding down your mouse key! Oh and you get to mess with all kinda parameters like 'fluid viscosity' for example. And the music can put quite a few soundtracks to shame! Must play!

..... aaaaaaaaah some things you play till you go screwy in the head!

Project Gutenberg

Even if you're like me, that is someone who believes that a book has to be held, and felt, and smelt, and touched, and folded, and slept with, who absolutely cannot comprehend the idea of e-books, and only sees it as an efficient storage mechanism and has to print them before reading them, you will still appreciate the effort these folks and Project Gutenberg are doing. With the mission of 'preserving the literary history of the world in a freely available form for everyone to use', Project Gutenberg makes available over 20,000 free e-books in their online book catalog and another 100,000 titles through their partners, affiliates and resources. And all of it is volunteer work. You can help by:

• Help Proofread a Book (something that I do)
  
• Procure Eligible Paper Books
• Burn CDs and DVDs for People Without Internet Access
• Donate Money
• Promote Project Gutenberg on Your Web Page (see the banner at the bottom of my sidebar on the right)

Click on the banner below to visit their homepage :)

Oh and if you are the e-book sort, knock yourself out! you've found your holy grail ... and they have special formats for those who want to read books off their palms (weird! but I actually know someone who does that!)

Hello users ....

this is a system generated message. If you send it back to the number this originated from, you will get a return ticket to Shanghai and a green monkey, absolutely free! Send now or get ready to be possessed by the break dancing chicken from planet chickenupiter.

Burnt Norton

First Published in 1935 it is the first poem in the four related poems by T.S. Eliot, which were published individually from 1935 to 1942. The other three are: East Coker (1940), The Dry Salvages (1941) and Little Gidding (1942). Together known as 'The Four Quartets' , these were collected and republished in book form in 1943.

Time present and time past 
Are both perhaps present in time future 
And time future contained in time past. 
If all time is eternally present 
All time is unredeemable, 
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility 
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present. 
Footfalls echo in the memory 
Down the passage which we did not take 
Towards the door we never opened  
Into the rose garden.

woohoo!

400 visiting blabbers it is! :D

How to apply for a Visa (for Pakistanis)

Not too long ago I chanced to go to the diplomatic enclave in Islamabad for a visa interview. Now those of you, who like me have been born and raised in Islamabad, or are generally familiar with it, will remember the days when diplomatic enclave was this sleepy sector on the edge of the town (the starting edge that is) with rather bumpy roads, shrubbery, buildings here and there with flags identifying who they are (or not) and general peace and quiet. You could drive around the streets at a leisurely 40kph, having a generally happy time playing the flag game, trying to identify what flag is that you’re seeing, losing your way and finally parking across the road in front of your intended destination, get your work done and happily drive away. Living that my family was at the OTHER edge of the city (F/11) it took us half an hour to get to the enclave, 15 minutes to an hour getting done whatever we came for (which was mostly a relative asking us to pick their passport or something since we live in Islamabad) and then go our way.

No more is this the case. Since 9/11, Al-Qaida, religious fundamentalists, bomb blasts and suicide bombings, diplomatic enclave is now a walled fortress with forbidding gates which a mere mortal must dare not approach. You turn right some 500 meters from the gates and then take a side road into a parking lot. You park your car and then pass through a security check where they strip you of your cell phones, electronics and bags that are larger than a specific size and of course you’re searched. Once deemed ‘not-a-security-risk’ you head towards this ticket booth that has counters marked with names of different embassies. Here they sell you entry and exit tickets for the diplomatic enclave, with the name of the embassy you’re heading for on it. If the embassy of your interest is not listed, stand in any line and they’ll scribble the name on a blank ticket and hand it to you. Then you go onwards to this waiting area where they have about 6 lines, each marked with boards bearing the name of various embassies. You stand in the relevant line and then wait for a bus to drop you off to your destination. The buses run in a round-robin fashion, i.e. they stuff as many people as fit from the first line into the first arriving bus, the next bus then picks up people from the next line and so on. If you’re at the end of your line which is 5 rounds away … then tough luck … be prepared to wait in the line for anything between and hour to an hour and a half. Thankfully the bus arrives, you get stuffed into it and after less than a 5 minute ride, you are dropped at the first signpost that says the name of whatever embassy you’re headed to. You get off, walk for 10 minutes or so, hopefully reach at the time of your appointment (I barely made it) and you’re done in 15 minutes! And then on your way back you wait for some 15-20 minutes for any bus heading back to the parking area so you can hitch a ride on it.

I had a 9:00 am appointment for which I left home around 6:45 am and still BARELY made it!

Oh and you might say that they are doing it in the spirit of public service … but no … parking is 10 Rs. Entry ticket is 15 Rs. And exit ticket is another 15 Rs! Trust our administration to come up with money making ideas. Where all the money actually goes …. is an entirely different story!!

An elementary course in general knowledge ....

These days the Czech prime minister is visiting Islamabad ... or at least he was the last time i checked i.e. the 11th ... and as is the wont of our government PR machine ... the city was adorned with the standard-issue banners with the two flags and 'friendship slogans' on them ... HOWEVER ... somebody really forgot to use their brains this time ... the result? A hilarious yet embarassing diplomatic incident. Read more from the blog that initially reported it:

from the horses mouth

P.S.: I wonder what an average Czech would come up with if asked to imagine the 'Pakistani' flag!?. Open to suggestions / opinions / brainwaves :)

Talking alien!

No chinchillas as yet ... but I promise you I will someday write about them ... my immediate and pressing issue is trying to access my blog/email/google in english! with google.com its easy, there's a link that ends with 'google.com' ... even though it will begin with Turkish or French or German or whatever is the language of choice in the region!

I decided to write SOMETHING in my blog (after promising 5 months ago that I will) and it was a NIGHTMARE trying to find my way to the dashboard ... let me illustrate:

1. EVERYTHING is in German. I currently happen to be located in German speaking part of Switzerland. And for the LIFE OF ME I can't find any button on any Google associated site that says 'English'. Dang!
2. While i was still handicapped with a language I'm not 'very' familiar with (sans 'Shisse' and 'frichen' which were learnt thanks to Saady and 'ich versteh euich nicht' learnt thanks to Rammestein) my blog HAD to be the choice few they decided to migrate to Google accounts ... even though i admit it makes things a lot easier!
3. I admit i visit my own blog very rarely ... something which I'm trying to fix ... and while I'm trying my best to find my way around the numerous login pages by colors and orientation of web-content ... i find out i don't remember my login OR password!! double dang!

Sufficeth to say that since you are reading this post and it is in English ... I somehow did find my way to the posting grounds of blogs. The entire page is STILL in German and again I'm trying to rely on my memory of colors and orientation to try to post it. But wait before i start playing with the interface let me save this post on my computer! don't want to type all of it again if it goes missing (pun intended) in the Swiss Alps!

P.S. The german equivalent of save as draft is "ALS ENTWURF SPEICHERN" and publish is "VEROFFENTLICHEN". I know because i tried posting it and ended up saving as a draft, then posted it without formatting and this is the third try in which I'm editing ... found the right button the first time, thank God it wasn't delete! and now time to Veroffentlichen! till next time!

And again ....

My God I havne't posted in a year!? or something. That's bad. Well going to try to. And will start with that promised Chinchillas post.